“In a world where every choice is a statement of who we are, Billionaire embodies everything the vodka experience has come to represent, and does so with smooth, vivacious opulence. There’s a dimension … that identifies it as the vodka of choice - not only by those with a palate educated in the enjoyment of refined flavors, but also to elite individuals new to this most enjoyable of epicurean delights. With its irresistible presence, Billionaire Vodka embodies elegance and desirability.”
- copy on Billionaire Vodka website billionairevodka.com
Vodka was born poor on the steppes. He knew darkness and cold, borscht and ukha, wet wool and kolpaks. He had what he had, a certain versatility and ruthlessness, cunning married to lumpen belligerence. He had an instinct for supplying whatever people thought they needed. For some that was obliteration. For some that was comfort.
Vodka preferred not to kill his customers, for he liked the repeat business. But he would do what was called for - he would adapt. All he needed was yeast and sugar and a source of carbohydrates: Wheat. Potatoes. Rye. Sugar beets. Molasses. Cabbage. Honeysuckle. Old copies of Fifty Shades of Grey.
In recent years, he has often worn his dinner jacket. He has shaved his beard and head, he has migrated west. He is a player in all the clubs, with a larger share than any of the others. Old Man Gin, the patrician murderer, who once sneered at him? Vodka dwarfs him now. Vodka drank his milkshake, took his martini away.
Vodka learned that people wanted an unseen servant, a ghost to deliver unto them whatever they expected without being apprehended by the senses. So they want an invisible, imperceptible spirit to carry fruit flavors and mix easily with their guests? Vodka can be that. He can fade away into the background, to watch and wait. He can allow them to put up websites and hire 419 scammers to write ad copy. Vodka can take a joke - he likes Dan Aykroyd’s infomercial with the Herkimer diamonds.
Vodka understands brand stratification. He wears many faces - from Billionaire Vodka, which bills itself as “the most expensive … most exclusive vodka in the world” and the choice of “the most financially successful individuals on the planet” and costs $3.75 million a bottle (though keep in mind that it is a five-liter “Platinum- and Rhodium-encased diamond-encrusted crystal bottle with solid gold labels and neckband encrusted with channel-set diamonds and Billionaire embellishments and crowned with a numbered diamond-speckled hand-mounted platinum-flocked foil seal”) to the $12-a-gallon stuff.
Vodka doesn’t judge. People like what they like, want what they want, pay what they can.
If you have paid attention to this column over the past decade or so, you might know that we prefer old-style potato vodka, peasanty vodka that is not so clear and refined as the most expensive stuff - something with a little of the earth in it. I like vodka to make itself known, to at least whisper its intentions, with a slight potato wisp or some vanilla creaminess deep down. I like them a little oily and that saves me a few bucks. I really like the Polish vodka Wodka, which - if you can find it - is generally available for less than $10.
That doesn’t mean I find the super-premium stuff offensive - Grey Goose and Stoli are just fine, although I’m likely to add a few more drops of olive juice to stir stuff up. It’s just that I prefer Tito’s, American Harvest, Cathead or Little Rock’s own Brandon’s. If you like Ciroc or Billionaire, that’s fine. But I write this column, so I privilege my own tastes.
To that end, I mean to tell you about a new potato vodka distilled in Idaho called Grand Teton. I like the vodka a lot. Since its launch in August 2012, it picked up a Double Gold Medal (awarded only when judges unanimously rank a spirit at the gold medal level) at the San Francisco Spirits Competition and has been ranked as the No. 1 potato vodka in the world (and No. 3 overall) by Proof66.com. The independent Beverage Testing Institute awarded it a Gold Medal and a score of 94, the top score awarded to any vodka. Wine Enthusiast gave it a 92.
There’s a very pleasant earthiness to the sip, and an absence of sweetness that I found bracing. Some people say they find vegetable-based vodkas medicinal, but I prefer the taste profile to the smoother wheat or fruit-derived products. This is a less neutral spirit, and with a price point between $18 and $25, a definite contender for house vodka around our place.
Grand Teton Vodka has Arkansas roots. Lea Beckett, with her husband, Bill, founded Grand Teton Distillery in 2011 near the small Idaho town of Driggs in the Teton Valley and began production of the vodka in July 2012.
“I was born in Little Rock … was a City Beautiful Princess in 1961 … graduated from Little Rock Central High in 1961, where I was a High Stepper,” Beckett writes in an email. She received a medical degree from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in 1978 and practiced medicine for 25 years. “My sister is on faculty at UAMS as a renal nurse and nurse practitioner, and both my brothers still live in Little Rock. My grandparents had a farm near Pine Bluff 150 years ago.”
Three of Beckett’s four sons are involved in the distillery, which currently distributes in 11 states, including (naturally) Arkansas.
Another new product on the shelves of Arkansas liquor stores is the whimsically packaged Rock N Roll Tequila (about $30), notable for its guitar-shaped bottle. The tequila, available in mango and coffee-flavored varieties as well as a blanco, has an exclusive marketing deal with Elvis Presley Enterprises that allows the use of the king’s likeness on their packaging. We’ll have more on this tequila next month, but I wanted to mention it as Elvis’ birthday is a scant three days away. And I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than with tequila shots.
Those of you who would protest that Elvis didn’t drink should understand that while that’s true, even when he was alive he allowed Col. Tom Parker to lease his name to various purveyors of alcoholic beverages. I have a very clear memory of examining a white ceramic decanter of Elvis Presley Wine in a Mr. Thrifty liquor store in Shreveport about a year after Elvis’ death and reading this disclaimer: “Elvis didn’t drink wine, but if he had, he would have loved Elvis Presley Wine!” Email: pmartin@arkansasonline.com
Style, Pages 45 on 01/05/2014